Archive for the ‘Charts & tables’ Category

It’s not easy to depict the movement of terrorists’ money on maps. But the folks at Geopolitical Atlas have taken a good stab at it with respect to black market oil routes operated by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Their map illustrates how ISIS territory, Syrian and Iraqi oil fields, ISIS-controlled highways, and porous borders with neighboring sympathizers overlap:

Most of the income comes from the energy sector, with 55 percent income coming from oil and natural gas. The remainder comes from extortion/Islamic taxation (12 percent); control of the Iraqi agricultural sector (primarily wheat and barley at 7 percent), the cement industry (10 percent), and phosphate mining (10 percent); kidnap-for-ransom schemes (4 percent); and donations (2 percent).

Hat tip to Gisele for sending in an infographic from their findings, which include the income breakdown:

A new ranking of the best funded terrorist organizations has been published by Forbes Israel. The Islamic State of Iraq comes in first with a reported net worth of $2 billion, followed by Hamas at $1 billion, FARC in third place at $600 million, Hezbollah fourth, and the Taliban fifth. Money Jihad would have estimated a lower net worth for ISIS, and would have placed the Taliban higher on the list. Forbes Israel rates the Irish Republic Army at 9th place with $50 million, which Money Jihad believes is an overinflated figure, while the Belfast Telegraph reports that Forbes based that figure on information from the U.S. State Department and academics.

U.S. Treasury official David Cohen has said several times recently that ISIS is the best-financed terrorist group that is not funded by a state sponsor—a comment which tends to undermine the Forbes ranking by suggesting that Hamas and Hezbollah, which are funded by Iran, have more money than ISIS.

One common thread across most of the terrorist groups listed is their reliance on revenues from “taxes” that they believe are justified by the foundational texts of their ideologies. ISIS charges Iraqi businessmen taxes as a form of zakat and charges non-Muslims jizya. Hezbollah collects money much of its money through khums, the Shia tax on gains. Al-Shabaab collects checkpoint taxes and zakat on trade in keeping with taxes and customs duties levied by the caliphate of antiquity. The Taliban collects harvest taxes on opium and collects ransom money as authorized by the Koran. The FARC believes that expropriating the wealth of capitalists through extortion and ransom are in keeping with the writings of Marx and Engels.

After the jihadist murder of Corporal Nathan Cirillo, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ottowa police force met with several Islamic groups in order to reach out to them and reassure them. The website Point de Bascule points out that several of the groups that police met with have previously funded IRFAN, Human Concern International, or Islamic Relief Canada, all of which have been implicated in terrorist financing schemes. Here’s an accounting of how much money the groups that Canadian police met with gave to those front groups:

Thanks to Gisele for sending in the PdB report and the Sun TV graphic on the money trails between the Canadian Islamic groups and suspected terrorist affiliates.

If you follow the money, the men in the middle of the disbursing of funds to the 9/11 hijackers were United Airlines Flight 175 hijacker-pilot Marwan al-Shehhi and a UAE-based computer specialist Ali Abdul Aziz Ali (Ali), who ultimately received the money from his uncle, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (KSM).

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Al Qaeda was able to raise about $30 million a year, mostly from zakat and sadaqa from wealthy Arab donors and other supportive Muslims around the world. The money was funneled through Islamic charities—often charitable foundations backed directly by the Saudi government—and through hawala, the traditional Islamic system of transferring money without physically having to transfer cash. The same methods continue being used to fund Al Qaeda and its offshoots today.

Of that $30 million, $10-$20 million was estimated by the 9/11 Commission to have been given annually to the Taliban. The remaining money was used for wages, training, planning, and operations like 9/11, which is estimated to have cost $400,000 to half a million dollars to carry out.

KSM gave about $300,000 of that sum to the hijackers for their travel to and inside the U.S., living expenses, and flight lessons. He sometimes handed out cash to operatives during face-to-face meetings but he relied on intermediaries—most significantly Ali—for international transactions once the U.S. sleeper cells had been established. In addition to being KSM’s nephew, Ali is the cousin of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, and the husband of terror maven Aafia Siddiqui. He currently resides in Guantanamo Bay.

In what amounted to the largest series of transactions in the entire run-up to 9/11, Ali sent at least $110,000 to al-Shehhi for use by him, Muhammad Atta, and presumably for the expenses of the other Florida-based hijackers—several of whose leaders had been a part of Atta’s prior Al Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany. Read the rest of this entry ?

Somehow this one slipped by us last year. In case you missed it too, the Washington Post did an expose in 2013 about international trips by Congressional staffers paid for by foreign governments.

The #3 sponsor of these junkets is, according to data the Post compiled from 2006 to 2011, is Saudi Arabia. Vox.com recently put the information into this map:

Rest assured, these staffers aren’t receiving a fair and balanced view of the two-headed Saudi-Wahhabi royalist theocracy while they’re there.

If there’s a valid fact-finding or diplomatic mission, then let the staffers file expense reports with our government as they would for any other official business. If there’s no official business, travel there during your own vacation time on your own dime.

Saudi Arabia wouldn’t be spending this money if it didn’t think it was getting something in return.

Money Jihad has long reported on how al-Shabaab profits from Somalia’s charcoal smuggling business, particularly by charging a checkpoint tax authorized by Islamic law. A new report from the United Nations Environmental Programme and Interpol confirms that this activity is ongoing despite a UN ban against Somali charcoal exports, saying that “Al Shabaab retains about one third of the [charcoal] income, which alone constitutes about USD 38–56 million” annually.

A map in the report shows a key al-Shabaab tax checkpoint at Buulo Xaaji, main points of embarkation from Kismayo and Barawe, major delivery locations at Jizan (Saudi Arabia), Dubai and Sharjah (UAE), and Khasab (Oman), with additional deliveries in Egypt, Yemen, and Kuwait.

In addition to “normal” smuggling of charcoal from Somalia to the Gulf states, it is Money Jihad’s belief that rampant trade-based money laundering is occurring between al-Shabaab and these states in which wealthy Arabs are transferring funds to al-Shabaab through over-invoicing for charcoal purchased. In other words, terror financiers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia are intentionally overpaying for Somali charcoal as a means of funding al-Shabaab without simple detection. The Gulf states are doing this to pursue larger strategic interests in Africa.